In 2005 Juventuz was placed under new management and received a complete
makeover. Unfortunately this also meant that all of the content, some of
lasting value, was removed. This archive is a means to bring the site back
online the way it was in 2005, but in archival form. There will not be any
updates made to this archival site.
The old site is back online, and by and large all the old content is
restored. However, highly time sensitive content (like news, columns, match
reports, league standings and so on) is outdated at this point and
therefore no effort was made to restore this in full (news archives for
instance).
Furthermore, at the time when this version of the site was live, we
relied on any number of other suppliers for features like livescores,
match forecasts, site search and so on. These suppliers have mostly either
shut down or removed our site from their services, so these pages will
show up quite blank.
Interactive features like the juventuz.com email service, the
newsletter and the prediction game have long since been shut down.
There are plenty of things left that stand the test of time, like
everything in the history
section, the club section, the
image gallery,
the wallpapers,
many of the goals in the
video gallery
are still online, as well as the
featured articles.
In short, browse around and you'll find a lot to discover!
If you are interested in the history behind Juventuz, you ought to see
the
site history
page!
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Road to the scudetto 2002 > Prelude
Match
reports and goal
videos from (almost) all the matches are available
on our site for your enjoyment.
This match-by-match scudetto guide was originally published
by the Gazzetta
dello Sport. Thank you so much Nina for the
translation! |
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Transfer campaign
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| Lippi returns |
The first major transfer after a disappointing 2000/01 campaign
came almost directly after the full time whistle of the final
match. Carlo Ancelotti was shown the door in favor of Marcello
Lippi, the Juve success coach. Among his previous achievements
at the club, I might mention 3 league titles, the Champions
League and the Intercontinental Cup. Not to mention that for
a period of 3-4 years under his reign, Juventus was a real European
superpower (unlike presently), reaching the final of the Champions
League 3 times. On his first day on the job, Marcello proclaimed:
"I know that I have to win back the faith of the fans and
I'll do it with the results."
So the first step had been taken. In came Lippi with the promise
of attacking football. Yet the biggest move of the summer concerned
one of the most attacking minded players in the squad, the eminent
Zizou made his Real switch for no less than £48m. SuperPippo
followed him out of the door, but headed for Milan after learning
that the new French bomber (top scorer to-be) had stolen his
place in the lineup. Both players had proclaimed their wish
and intention to stay at the club for the rest of their careers
only few months before their respective transfers.
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| Czech maestro Nedved |
With the major sales, the management was pursuaded and splashed
out bigtime on new players to strengthen the already respectable
squad. Dutch champion Van Der Sar was shipped off to Fulham
only to see the most expensive (and perhaps best) goalkeeper
in the world join the Bianconeri. The unimpressive Bachini moved
to Parma in the Buffon deal, rated at £33m. The club also
brought in a few other big names in Thuram, Nedved and Salas.
Yes, the spending was massive this time, around £100m
cleaned out to recruit new players.
Ambitions
For a club of Juve's stature, winning is not an ambition, it's
a requirement. Ancelotti's team had just missed out on the league
title twice in a row, the management was becoming restless,
Zidane was re-evaluating his options. To make matters worse,
the club's performance in Europe under Ancelotti had been quite
catastrophical considering Juve's quite recent success. Something
had to be done to get back on winning ways. After spending modestly
in the pre-season in past years, Juve's transfer campaign was
formidable this time.
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| A massive £33m is what
it took to convince the Parma bosses to give up Buffon |
What was lost had to be found. Lippi had enjoyed a lot of success
in the past. His team was known to play an attacking game, desperately
missed by many under Ancelotti. Lippi was also known to install
the right mental attitude in the minds of his players. He was
a winning coach, he had won before and he could win again. Ancelotti,
on the other hand, had lost twice in a row.
What's more, Lippi also brought the promise of a reborn Alessandro
Del Piero. The two had enjoyed a good relationship during Lippi's
previous stay at Juve. But since 1998, Del Piero had been plagued
by a nasty injury, some predicted he would never fully recover
from it. There was even talk of Alex leaving the Bianconeri.
The fantasista's form was on an incline by the end of the season
and Lippi's arrival brought much hope for a rebirth of one of
the finest football minds in Italy the past decade. Lippi and
Juve enjoyed much success and won many trophies with Del Piero
on form. Neither had won anything without that vital ingredient.
But despite the heavy spending, the new coach and the newly
found hope for success, winning was still an absolute requirement.
And Lippi could not be certain of a second season should it
happen he misses out on all the trophies like his predecessor
did.
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